Student Webinar by Moses Nathaniel Duggirala

The global economy continues to depend heavily on petroleum due to the slow paceof energy-transition initiatives. This dependence is especially relevant for India, whereaging fields and the lack of significant new discoveries have resulted in decliningproduction. 

Meanwhile, high-impact deepwater discoveries in Suriname, FrenchGuiana, Guyana, Senegal, and Namibia signal the need to revisit India’s vast yetunderexplored deep-offshore domains.Reassessment of plate-tectonic concepts, supported by bold exploration ideas andadvanced geophysical technologies, offers new insights into India’s deep and ultra-deepwater potential. Recent long-offset seismic, gravity, and magnetic investigationshave improved understanding of major tectonic features—including the 85°E Ridge,oceanic fracture zones, transform faults, the Laxmi Ridge, and Bengal Fan system—and their associated hydrocarbon habitats.The episodic rifting of Gondwana from the Jurassic through the Cretaceous shapedthe mega-regional rift-drift architecture of the deepwater provinces of Western India.For example, plate-tectonic reconstructions position Kerala Offshore Basin along theNE Proto-Mozambique Ocean margin, with Antarctica serving as the primary sedimentsource. Subsequent transform-fault tectonics generated extensive sub-basaltstructural traps, warranting immediate exploration. 

Applying similar tectono-stratigraphic reasoning to the Bay of Bengal reveals the enormous, yet largelyuntested, petroleum potential of the Bengal Fan.As the world’s largest deep-sea fan system, the Bengal Fan extends across threesedimentary sub-basins separated by the 90°E and 85°E ridges, with sedimentthicknesses ranging from 2 km to 16 km. Integrated analysis of crustal ages, Curieisotherms, and paleo-heat flow suggests that the western basin favours thermogenichydrocarbons, whereas the central basin is more conducive to biogenic gasgeneration. In the absence of drill data from the Cretaceous section of the BengalFan, analogues from the South Atlantic—where DSDP/ODP cores have confirmedorganic-rich black shales in 4000–5000 m water depths—provide strong justificationfor its source potential. Given the similar breakup histories of the Bay of Bengal andSouth Atlantic, extrapolation of established South Atlantic hydrocarbon-yield models(e.g., Leblanc, 1995) implies a substantial, possibly world-class, resource base for thedeeper Bengal Fan.Overall, India’s deepwater provinces present a promising frontier for future oil and gasexploration. Realizing this potential, however, requires focused, product-drivenresearch supported by fit-for-purpose geoscience datasets to unlock the widespreadhydrocarbon opportunities concealed beneath India’s deep offshore basins.